After months of doom gloom and angst, there is a glimmer of optimism around.

UK shares hit a 12-month high, the British economy is forecast to be spending its way to recovery and the country's unemployment rate has fallen again to a fresh two-year low, with the overall size of the workforce at a record high.

Shares on the London stock market stormed ahead on Thursday, with the FTSE 100 closing at 4,238, a high not seen since last August.

Smaller stocks in the FTSE 250, which have had a rough time, have also powered forward.

As stockmarkets around the world tumbled last summer, with a plethora of worries about corporate accounting scandals and the war with Iraq, so the wave of recovery has had a domino effect on the markets in Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and New York.

Investor confidence appears to be boomeranging back and the US economy even shrugged off the initial effects of the devastating power blackout after fears that it was another terrorist attack receded - though the wider economic impact of the world's biggest power failure may yet remain to be seen.

Back home, the Bank of England's quarterly inflation report is forecasting modest recovery.

The country's phenomenal spending spree, which seemed to take a dip earlier in the year, is returning, since following the war with Iraq we appear to have breathed a collective sigh of relief, and continued with the comfort of retail therapy.

Another good reason to rejoice is in the falling numbers of unemployed - now 1,458,000, with a jobless rate of just five per cent, and the workforce numbers nearly 28m - the biggest since records began in 1984 - though manufacturing continues to take a battering.

There's always the other side of the coin of course, and the FTSE 100 is still 38 per cent off its peak of 6,931 reached on the last trading day of 1999.

And the very forces that have sent equities higher, have dented the bond market - the haven to which those who have seen their pension funds taking a battering, have rushed to take shelter.

Ironically, the better news on the shares front came on the same day record complaints about pensions - hammered by the volatile markets - were announced, by the Pensions Ombudsman David Laverick.

Nearly 4,000 complaints - an all-time high - have been received by his office in the year - the largest number since the office was established in 1990.

Mr Laverick says his staff are sinking under the barrage - he hasn't got enough to cope, and no money to hire any more.

"Despite a great deal of hard work from my staff and myself, we have been failing to keep up with the incoming tide," he says somewhat tetchily.

And he's fired a broadside at the media, who he blames for giving such high-profile coverage to the pensions debacle. Don't shoot the messenger, Mr Laverick, he may help you solve your problems in the long run.